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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720288">Birthday Present</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and'>Celia_and</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abandonment Issues, Aftercare, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Banter, Ben is Poe's best friend, Birthday, Blackmail, College Student Rey (Star Wars), Crying During Sex, Cunnilingus, Doggy Style, Dom/sub, Dominant Ben Solo, Drunk Texting, Epistolary, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hotel Sex, Long-Distance Relationship, Masturbation, Mirror Sex, Missionary Position, Multiple Orgasms, No Pregnancy, No one is actually trafficked, Pining, Poe is Rey's Brother, Protective Siblings, Rich Ben Solo, Sassy Rey (Star Wars), Sexting, Smut, Soft Ben Solo, Submissive Rey (Star Wars), Texting, Unsafe Sex, Vaginal Sex, reference to human trafficking, safe sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:54:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,042</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720288</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>-Can we please just go back to cordial indifference and pretend like this never happened?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-No, I don’t think so.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-What? Why not?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-Going back to cordial indifference would require feeling cordial indifference in the first place. I’m not indifferent to you, Rey.</em>
</p><p>----------</p><p>On the night of her 21st birthday, college student Rey drunkenly sexts her brother’s friend, Ben.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>favorite fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This gorgeous moodboard was made by the precious <a href="https://twitter.com/LaneReads">@LaneReads</a>! 💛</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oh hey I’m writing this on <a href="https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2/status/1285958635374489611">Twitter</a>! 😊</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Her phone is still in her hand, but Ben doesn’t text her back as she shuffles out of her room. Her left slipper has a hole in the bottom, which is particularly frustrating, because why couldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>both</span>
  </em>
  <span> of them have gotten a hole? That way her feet would be equally uncomfortable and she wouldn’t notice as much. She grumbles her way through the living room. She wouldn’t open the door to someone she isn’t expecting, because she’s not an idiot, but she’ll check the peephole that Poe installed, just in case one of her roommates forgot their key. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Why are there roommates? Why is there winter?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Ugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pushes the peephole cover aside with a sweatshirt-covered thumb and looks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not her roommate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes a second for her brain to catch up to her eye through the fisheye lens. The first thing it gives her is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not roommate.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Then </span>
  <em>
    <span>man.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Then </span>
  <em>
    <span>tall and dark hair.</span>
  </em>
  <span> All of which should add up to </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t open the door.</span>
  </em>
  <span> But then there’s one last piece.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Ben.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t wait for her brain this time. She slides the bolt, turns the lock and the knob, and walks straight into his arms. He’s on the stoop, a step down. So is she, now, and if her left tiptoes are getting soaked through the hole in her slipper, what does that matter? Because her arms are wrapped around his shoulders, and one of his is locked around her waist and the other hand is in her hair and she’ll need to kiss him eventually, but first she just needs to hold onto him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You—” She pulls back enough to look at him. Her hands rest on his shoulders. “What if I’d said I didn’t want you to come?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiles, and in that smile he’s twenty-two again, and she’s eighteen with a crush. “It doesn’t matter. You didn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But what if I had? You would’ve just turned around and gone back to the airport?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>crazy,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ben, this is crazy, why are you even here, if I’d—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rey.” He cuts her off. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here. You’re here. And you let me in.” His smile is almost too bright; it makes her eyes ache to look at. “You let me in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks down at his scarf. Fiddles with its edges. “Technically I haven’t let you in. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re outside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had noticed that, actually. Nice weather for it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm hm,” she hums in agreement, without raising her eyes from his scarf. “I always like to hang out outside. At 8:30 at night. In February.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Balmy.” There’s a smile in his voice. “Rey.” He touches her chin gently. She looks up. “Do you think you’re going to let me inside? Because if I’m going back to the airport I’d like to order a Lyft.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s convenient that she’s already holding his scarf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she can tug his mouth down to hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who came up with the idea of sexting, anyway? Probably someone thought about love letters and decided </span>
  <em>
    <span>let’s do that, but with less coherence. And more orgasms.</span>
  </em>
  <span> It’s safe: with fingers that stroke but only a screen and lips that might be nipped but only by their own teeth. And despite what she said, he’s good at it. She wouldn’t admit it, but she’s reread his texts maybe as often as he has hers, and they’ve given her flushed skin and panting gasps and a squelch of wet on wet and smiles—</span>
  <em>
    <span>so</span>
  </em>
  <span> many smiles. But they’ve never given her what she has on the front stoop, and now she wonders how she thought it could compare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To his body. His height, and his solidity, and the way she can press her hips into him and earn a groan and a bite on her lip. She kisses him like she wants to eat him up, and like she’s angry with herself for the wanting. He inhales it all—her ferocity—and gives it back as good as he gets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And who’s ever been able to do that, with her?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He backs her up against the door and pins her there with iron hands on pajama-clad hips. It’s dark, but the porch light illuminates enough that her neighbors could see if they happened to be watching. His kisses have an aching desperation, now, as they slide from her mouth to her neck, and she twines her fingers in his hair. He kisses her like she might send him back to the airport at any moment and if she does, he wants to taste as much of her skin as possible first.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ben,” she says, and pulls at his scarf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm?” His mouth has found the corner of her jaw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if I did let you in?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> gets his attention. He tears himself away from her. His lips are plump and wet. She wants to kiss them. But that would be counterproductive. That’s exactly how they ended here in the first place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes a breath. “Would you fuck me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stares incredulously. “You flew here from London and you don’t want to fuck me against the wall inside the door?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes a deep breath. “The flight here was about eight and a half hours. I slept for part of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, you can sleep on planes? I thought the leg room was supposed to be horrendous?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They have these seats that lie all the way flat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Ooh,</span>
  </em>
  <span> I forgot you’re disgustingly rich. Continue.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I slept for a couple hours. The rest of the time I spent debating that very question: if you let me in, if you let me touch you, would I be able to stop myself from taking you right inside the door?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So? What did you decide?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t. I went back and forth for hours. Because the only thing I want more than to be inside of you is to get this right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A thousand lifetimes, Rey. I’ve waited this long, I can wait a few minutes more.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?” she pouts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are your roommates home?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When are they going to be back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I dunno.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come to my hotel with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, you’ve gotten a hotel room already?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to shower for you, so I didn’t smell like the plane.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You’re dumb,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she wants to say. She understands now why they say that kids are mean to the person they secretly have a crush on. Because there’s so much liking in her chest that she doesn’t know what to do with it. She doesn’t know what to do with </span>
  <em>
    <span>any</span>
  </em>
  <span> degree of liking, truthfully. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re dumb. I hate your face. Kiss me again, stupid head.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t say any of those things. She reaches for his crotch and rubs her hand brazenly along the outline of his shaft, half-hard under layers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He jumps and hisses, “What are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can fuck me inside against the wall,” she says, “or I can make you cum right here.” Her hand hasn’t ceased its firm strokes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rey,” he grits but doesn’t stop her. “We’re outside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. You should probably fuck me. You wouldn’t want to cum in your pants again.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He huffs. “You have no idea what I want.” He grows harder still under her palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Apparently not to fuck me. You don’t want to yank my pants off and pick me up and bury your cock inside me. To the hilt, Ben.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His breathing is ragged, but he’s resolute. “Come to my hotel. With thick...mmm...walls and a big...</span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>...soft bed with clean sheets.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shakes her head, even as her fingers find the sides of his cock through his slacks, mostly hidden under his coat. “I have work in the morning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He groans, whether from the prospect of her working or her hand’s progress she’s not sure. “Call off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” She kisses him, then bites his lower lip. “Do you want me to stop?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He cums with a stifled gasp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lets him collapse against her, pinning her to the door as he recovers. She doesn’t know why, but she traces circles on his back, like he needs to be comforted for having orgasmed. With his face buried in her shoulder he says something too quiet for her to hear, so he realizes and repeats it. “Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shakes her head. “I can’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve called off before and the world didn’t end.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was different.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t call off now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not an answer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because you asked me to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He draws back. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hesitates. “It was one thing for me to decide myself, to call off work. For the first time. But...” She takes a deep breath. “I can’t be the kind of person who lets someone else persuade me to be irresponsible. Even you. Especially you. I won’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m serious, Ben, I...wait. What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. You have to get up at four, right? And it’s about nine now. That’s seven hours. Do you want to go to sleep? Because I can leave. Or I can stay. I can make you cum and then go back to the airport. Or I can sleep with you here. Or you can pack a change of clothes and come to the hotel and leave in time to go to work.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks up at him. His eyes are soft and shining.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want, Rey?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks at him. She thinks about her messy room and her twin bed. She thinks about her four a.m. alarm and the pinching ache between her shoulder blades that never really goes away. She thinks about North Carolina and London and all the water in between. Drops on drops on drops. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Seven hours.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your hotel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How has she forgotten how bright his smile could be? Or maybe he’s never smiled like this before? “Yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods resolutely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go pack a bag, sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She obeys. She doesn’t invite him in, because she needs to keep a door between real life and fantasy. As long as he’s safely outside on the stoop she can’t imagine him lazing on the couch, cooking in the kitchen, sprawled in her bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s not real,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she reminds herself as she throws clothes in a bag. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Just for tonight.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She grabs her toothbrush and thinks of her fourteen-year-old self. She feels a little like she’s running away all over again. Rationally, she knows she’ll be back tomorrow, but it doesn’t keep her from feeling that same thrill of uncertainty. The piece that’s different, though, is the </span>
  <em>
    <span>away</span>
  </em>
  <span> part. Running away from something. Running toward something. Either way, you have to pack a bag.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hefts it over her shoulder and slips on her boots. She must look a sight: baggy sweats and a careless topknot, and a sock still soaked, though no one can see that. She could’ve changed into something nice for him. She could’ve taken a shower and put on nice underwear. Not that she has actual nice underwear, but different underwear, at least. Black, instead of the pale pink cotton made paler by a hundred washes. But they only have seven hours—less than seven hours—and she wants every one. So he’ll just have to take her like she comes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she steps outside the Lyft is already waiting, and he’s standing by it at the curb. With cum in his pants and a smile on his lips. She bounds the dozen feet that separate them, and he holds the door open for her and kisses her hard and fast before she slides in. It feels illicit. Like she really is running away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The drive is short but seems interminable. She doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t touch him. She doesn’t look out the window, either. She knots her fingers in her lap and stares at the back of the headrest in front of her, so she can see with her peripheral vision how many times he looks over at her. She loses count.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They arrive. He picks up her bag before she can reach for it, and climbs out eagerly. She takes a breath and glances up at the Lyft driver’s eyes through the rear-view mirror. She’s probably a student too; she seems about Rey’s age. Neither of them says anything, but the driver’s eyes crinkle in a smile. She winks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rey flushes and gets out. Ben is waiting, with her bag in his hand, looking like an overgrown schoolboy. He doesn’t kiss her, just twines his fingers in hers. He looks at her. “You’re here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles. “That’s my line.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Then</span>
  </em>
  <span> he kisses her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They walk through the lobby and reach the elevator bank before Rey remembers and stops in her tracks. “Wait!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ben looks somewhat panicked. “What’s wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to tip the driver. And give her five stars.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fumbles for his phone and does it. Rey watches surreptitiously and thinks she sees two zeros on the tip amount. The elevator dings its arrival. They’re the only people in it. He punches the button for their floor and doesn’t even wait for the doors to close all the way before he has her pressed against the wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s too surprised to even yelp. He must’ve dropped her bag, because both of his hands are on her, one pinning her wrist to the wall and the other running up and down her side while his hips dig insistently against her. “You’re going to be the actual fucking death of me, Rey,” he breathes hoarsely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She grins. “So you’ve said.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t kiss her. He cages her body with his and he looks at her like his eyes were made for it. She wonders if that’s the reason that he doesn’t kiss her, because he can’t kiss her and look at her at the same time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he can, she realizes, when he takes the wrist that he’d pinned against the wall and brings it to his lips, slowly. Like he could ride the elevator up and down all night, just watching her. The way her lips part and her pupils stretch and her nostrils flare a little with the effort of breathing while he looks at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand is far bigger than it needs to be to accomplish its task of holding her wrist. It could hold twice as much. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Two</span>
  </em>
  <span> wrists. Her breath snags on the thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He never takes his eyes from hers as his lips meet her skin. And as soon as they do, the elevator stops and the doors open. He doesn’t let her go right away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watches the debate in his eyes, of whether to give up her wrist in his hand and her body flush against his for a momentary deprivation followed by a </span>
  <em>
    <span>more.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Because just down the hall, there are sheets waiting for their skin, and a bed waiting for her back and his thrusts. There’s a wall there, too, that her body can be pressed up against without elevator doors opening and without any eyes except for his, and hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That thought must settle it, because he tears himself away from her and leads her down the hall, quickly, like if he doesn’t get her inside in ten seconds she’ll leave. Or he’ll combust. Maybe both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He fumbles with the key card. It takes two tries before the lock clicks. He pushes the door open, holding it for her awkwardly, with one arm. She takes a breath. She sees a bed. She doesn’t look at him as she slips past and steps inside. He follows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t turn around to watch as the door shuts. She waits. He doesn’t pounce, like she expected. So she flips a light switch on and toes her boots off and bends down to peel off her socks. The carpet welcomes her feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she stands back up she feels his breath on her neck. She gasps and closes her eyes, waiting for his hands. His mouth. His teeth. His </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything.</span>
  </em>
  <span> But still he doesn’t touch her. So she turns to face him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rey,” he says, softly. The burning urgency is gone, replaced by an incredulous wonder. “I want—” He falls silent. “I want—” She can’t tell if he doesn’t know or won’t let himself say it. “I want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” she whispers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t,” he protests, shaking his head. “You can’t possibly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her fingers move to unbutton his coat, then hers. She shrugs hers off and pushes his off his shoulders. “Ben.” He still hasn’t moved. “I’m here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he finally agrees, and his arms wrap around her. He kisses her forehead. His mouth is at exactly the right height for it, like he was designed that way. Or she was, for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls back enough to look at her. Just hold her in his arms, and look down at her face. He cradles her cheek in a giant hand. She’s confused. “Don’t you want to...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I—” He swallows. “I just want to say. Rey. However long we have, however long you give me, this is real. It’s real, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know what to think, or feel, or say. But instead of figuring out she kisses him, because </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> she knows how to do. He doesn’t protest. He didn’t seem to expect an answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her arms snake over his shoulders and his hands find her rear and the heat returns. She moans into his mouth, because there’s no one to hear. She clutches his shirt and runs a hand down to his lower back and presses him to her, hard, with an arm that knows the heft of flour.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she comes up for air, he says, “Please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nods. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anything.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “Yes. Please. Ben.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He backs her up against the wall. He slips his thumbs beneath the band of her sweatpants and underwear and sinks to his knees, she thinks just to help her out of them. But when he’s extracted her feet and tossed the clothes aside he doesn’t stand back up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks up at her. She looks down quizzically. He nudges her feet apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t start slowly or lightly, doesn’t tease, doesn’t do any of the things that she would’ve imagined from his texts. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>devours.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s never been eaten out like this. She’s barely been eaten out at all, but even if she had something good to compare this to, it would still be earth-shattering. There are no tentative strokes, no languid licks. He eats her out like he’s actually eating. With his whole mouth. Like she’s the ripest, juiciest peach and he’s starved for fruit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mouth on her doesn’t leave any room in her head for thought. But it’s okay. She doesn’t need to think. Her back has the wall. Her hands have his hair. And her cunt has him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He groans in frustration as he tries to wedge his face farther into the space between her thighs. Without warning, without asking, he picks up her ankle and slings it over his shoulder, so her knee juts out behind him but her ankle rests on the meat of his shoulder. He hums contentedly at the new angle and slurps her up. Something firm presses to her clit—whether his thumb or his nose she doesn’t know—and her head falls back against the wall. She moans loudly, wantonly, not bothering to stifle it. She grips his hair and he inhales her and she rises up on her toes to grind down against him, again and again and again, using his face for her pleasure. She doesn’t know when he last breathed. She doesn’t know when </span>
  <em>
    <span>she</span>
  </em>
  <span> last breathed. All she knows is his hand gripping her thigh and the wet suction of his lips and the thrust of her against him and his eagerness, his single-minded desire to give her this. The trembling starts in her legs. She hangs on to conscious thought long enough to feel it coming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she lets go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s powerless to the wave that seizes her muscles and pulls noises from her lungs. She hears them as if from far away. Those aren’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> noises, they can’t be, except they must be because his mouth is still clamped to her cunt. Cries turn to </span>
  <em>
    <span>ohs</span>
  </em>
  <span> that turn to heaving gasps just before an electric shock of pleasure locks her lungs in a mindless peak. Then it recedes and </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she can breathe, and her chest grabs greedily at air as her muscles go lax. She considers trying to support herself, but why should she? Because she’s up here and he’s down there, and gravity and her twitching legs want to pull her down, so she lets them, sliding down the wall into a tangle in his arms. She kisses him, tiredly, before remembering that his face is covered in her, and she takes a proper look and giggles at his soaked nose and cheeks and chin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He attacks her with kisses, in retaliation. He falls to the floor and pulls her with him, kissing and maneuvering until she’s lying on top of him, laughing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a bed just a few feet away. But when her laughter quiets, her eyelids grow heavy. And Ben doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere anytime soon, judging by the way he’s holding her. So she presses one last kiss to his neck and snuggles into his chest sleepily. She feels a pang of regret that she’s using any of their precious hours to sleep. But something about his arms around her makes her forget that this isn’t forever. So she smiles and lets her eyelids fall shut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who needs a mattress? He’s her bed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She wakes to a hand stroking her arm and lips kissing the top of her head. She grunts and tries to burrow further into him, but he’s insistent. “Rey. Sweetheart.”</p><p>“Mmph.”</p><p>“Did you have dinner? Are you hungry?”</p><p>“Mmm.”</p><p>“Do you want to get in bed?”</p><p><em> Oh, right. </em> There’s a bed. That they could sleep in. Or do other things in. She wonders how many of the seven hours remain. Spurred by that thought, she props herself up on her elbows on either side of him. “Shower.”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“Let’s shower. And eat. In bed.”</p><p>He can’t be comfortable, lying as he is on the floor, but from his smile you’d never know it. “Okay.”</p><p>She clambers off him and kneels on the floor for a moment, taking stock of the night. “What time is it?”</p><p>He extracts his phone from his pocket. “10:50. You didn’t sleep for long.”</p><p>She rubs her eyes with the sweatshirt-covered heels of her hands. “You didn’t sleep?”</p><p>He props himself up on his elbows. “No.”</p><p>“Oh. Sorry. That can’t have been comfortable, I guess.”</p><p>“No, Rey.” He looks pained. “That’s not why.”</p><p>It seems like the reason is supposed to be obvious, but she doesn’t know it, so she retreats. She gets to her feet and starts toward the bathroom.</p><p>He asks, “What would you like for dinner?”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter. I’ll eat anything.”</p><p>She closes the bathroom door behind her and looks in the mirror. There’s some dried drool at the corner of her mouth. Her hair has only gotten messier in the course of their...activities, and she takes it out of its bun, combs it with her fingers, and ties it up again. She pulls off her sweatshirt and tee-shirt with it. It takes her a minute to figure out the fancy shower, but when she does she quickly soaps herself up, not wanting to make Ben wait in his cum-stained pants. The mirror hasn’t even had time to fog when she gets out and dries herself with the biggest towel she’s ever used. She doesn’t want to put her dirty tee-shirt back on, but neither does she want to go out in just a towel, so she puts on just the sweatshirt, folds the cuffs up and checks in the mirror to confirm that it covers her ass.</p><p>She doesn’t know how to feel. Part of her wants him to grab her and throw her on the bed and fuck her like she thought he was here for. They only have five hours left. She wonders how many times he could fuck her in five hours.</p><p>She hangs up the towel and picks up her dirty shirt. She takes a breath and opens the door. Ben is sitting on the edge of the bed, just hanging up the bedside phone. He’s taken his shoes off. She wants to go over and climb into his lap and curl up. She doesn’t.</p><p>“I ordered room service. It’ll be about forty-five minutes.”</p><p>“Good. Thank you, Ben,” she says, too formally. She busies herself with putting her shirt in her bag so she doesn’t have to look at him.</p><p>When she stands back up, he’s behind her. He threads an arm around her middle—just one. He presses her to him and kisses her cheek.</p><p>“Ben?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“You are going to fuck me, right?”</p><p>His arms tightens around her. “Yes, Rey, I’m going to fuck you.”</p><p>She smiles. “Okay.”</p><p>His arm is gone and so is he, to the bathroom.</p><p>She explores the room while he showers. Not that there’s much to explore. But she runs her fingertips over the polished wood of the dresser. She studies her face in the mirror above it. She wishes she owned lingerie. She wishes she were more...something. She wishes it were actually worthwhile to fly across an ocean to spend a night with her.</p><p>She hears the shower turn off, and the zip of a bag. She’s seized with an intense desire for him. She pulls her sweatshirt off impetuously. She stands there in front of the mirror, watching her nipples pebble. Her lips part and her eyes darken at the sight of her nakedness.</p><p>The bathroom door opens before she has a chance to decide where she wants to be when he sees her, how she wants to pose. So she doesn’t pose, she just stands there. Waiting for him to come claim her.</p><p>“Fuck,” she hears dimly over her shoulder. She doesn’t look over. She doesn’t need to watch him fumble in his bag for a condom, because she hears it. She leans forward onto the dresser, placing her hands on its smooth surface. She bites her lip.</p><p>He appears behind her in the mirror, wearing a pristine white tee-shirt and boxers. He palms himself through his boxers, but he hasn’t taken his cock out. He holds the unopened condom. She has a sneaking suspicion that he might try to do something silly like kiss her cheek, or turn down the bed and lay her tenderly on the white sheets.</p><p>So she arches her back and whines, “I <em> need </em> it, Ben.”</p><p>She doesn’t actually know how he pulled his cock out and got the condom on so quickly, but before she knows it he’s there, nudging her entrance, testing its stretch and its wetness.</p><p>“Fuck,” he breathes when he presses forward enough that the head slips in. “Rey. Fuck.”</p><p>She moans, as much at the raggedness of his voice as the feeling of him just barely inside. “I need it,” she repeats, trying to push backwards onto him. He grabs her hips to stop her and she almost sobs. <em> “Please, </em> Ben.”</p><p>“What do you need, sweetheart?”</p><p>“Fuck me,” she babbles. “Fuck me, Ben, <em> please.” </em></p><p>“You don’t want to eat dinner first?” He slides further in, but only by a centimeter, and still with a death grip on her hips.</p><p>“I need you,” she chokes out. “More than food.”</p><p>He smiles at her through the mirror: a brief, bright, hot thing. “Good girl.” She tries to relax, to open up in anticipation of the inevitable thrust, but it doesn’t come. He lets go of her hips.</p><p>She looks up at him through the mirror, questioning, her mouth hanging open.</p><p>“Do it, sweetheart.” He stands with his hands at his sides. No part of them is touching besides the inch of cock inside her. “Fuck yourself with me.”</p><p>Her fingers curl on the dresser and she grits her teeth. She presses backward, inch by blessed, cursed inch, and he stands stock still, giving no indication that he’s anything but her sentient sex toy. She’s wet but not as wet as she could be, nor as elastic, so there’s a slight element of stretch and of friction as she impales herself on him. She doesn’t just slide back, she rocks forward with tiny thrusts to get momentum to push a little farther, a little deeper.</p><p>When the tip of him nudges her cervix, she whimpers.</p><p>She looks up at him through the mirror. His hands are fisted by his thighs in an effort to keep from touching her. Sweat coats his forehead.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asks in a strangled voice.</p><p>She huffs a laugh and falls to her forearms on the dresser. “You’re big.”</p><p>“You’re perfect.”</p><p>“Ben,” she whines, not knowing what she’s asking for. She clenches around him, trying to make him do something, feel something. Be as far as she is from having control.</p><p><em> “Fuck,” </em> he curses fervently. “Rey.”</p><p>She gasps a breath. “You’re here.”</p><p>“What, in North Carolina or in you?”</p><p>“Mm hmm.”</p><p>“Rey?”</p><p>“Mm?” She pulses around him.</p><p>“What do you want?”</p><p>She rocks backward onto him, fucking herself with tiny strokes. “Touch me.” Her elbows dig into the wood. “Want me.”</p><p>His hands are light on her skin at first, tracing lines down her back. Exploring her hip bones, her ribs. He palms the muscled outsides of her thighs, runs his hands over her ass. He cups her breasts with hands that adore. He’s started to thrust, just a little, with strokes so small she doesn’t even know if he’s aware of them. His hands set her nerves alight and wet her cunt. It’s like foreplay, she realizes, except he’s already inside. They’re doing it backwards. But when has their timing ever been right?</p><p>“Ben? I want...” She trails off at the distraction of his hands spanning her waist.</p><p>“What do you want, sweetheart? Tell me.”</p><p>She slides back to take him deeper as her passage lengthens to accommodate him. “Can you just fuck me? However you want to. Without worrying about how I feel.”</p><p>He stills her. “I do worry how you feel. I want you to feel good.”</p><p>“That will make me feel good. Ben.” Her words stutter to a halt as she tries to marshal her thoughts with the distraction of him inside her. Ben Solo’s cock, inside her cunt. “Not to have to think. For once. Just be. For you. Yours.”</p><p>She looks up to see if he understands. She can’t read his expression.</p><p>“What if I hurt you?”</p><p>“You won’t.”</p><p>“But what if I do?”</p><p>“I’ll say stop.”</p><p>“Promise?”</p><p>“Mm hmm.” She musters the strength to look up at him through the mirror. He grips her hips. “Fuck me, Ben, <em> please, </em> fu—”</p><p>She doesn’t finish the word, because his thrust knocks the wind out of her.</p><p>He withdraws almost all the way, only to thrust home again, hard and fast and without waiting for her say-so.</p><p>“Yes,” she manages to breathe, because <em> this </em> is what she needed.</p><p>“Yeah?” he asks as he fucks her. “You like that, sweetheart?”</p><p>It should be rhetorical, but she knows he wants an answer, so she whimpers in assent. Her tits jiggle with the force of his thrusts. Her sweaty forearms slide on the wood. She lets her head hang forward, so her crown is inches from bumping against the mirror.</p><p>She’s thoroughly wet now, and he drives in with no resistance. Like her hole knows he belongs there and it’s making more and more slick to make up for lost time. He fucks her at a punishing pace. His fingers locked around her hips don’t even let her consider escaping. His balls slap her folds. She doesn’t worry about how she looks. She doesn’t think about anything. She just <em> is. </em> She exists for him and his cock and his pleasure, and the knowledge hits her as an orgasm.</p><p>He barely slows as she cries out and spasms around him. She’s sweating and panting and moaning, and he presses on like she hasn’t come at all, like she has a dozen orgasms in her and that was just a warmup. Like he could fuck her all night.</p><p>“Good girl,” he growls as he pistons into her. “Such a good fucking girl. Mine. <em> Mine</em>.<em>” </em></p><p>She nods helplessly, her head still hanging limply.</p><p>“Are you going to cum again for me?”</p><p>He hasn’t even finished the question when her next orgasm hits, a short, hard one that makes her writhe like she’s been electrocuted. She’s never cum a second time so soon. The rules of her body don’t apply, with him.</p><p>“Jesus fuck. Rey.” He’s still fucking her, and her arms have given way so her chest is resting on the dresser, and it’s only her hands against the mirror that stop her head from hitting it.</p><p>He pauses for a second, and she doesn’t know why until he snakes a steel forearm underneath her hips and lifts her feet off the floor. She’s suspended in air, held only by his arm and the dresser, and he braces himself on the wood with the hand that’s not holding her and redoubles his rhythm.</p><p>Her brain tries to compute and fails. She dangles from the crook of his arm. Her mouth forms an involuntary O, but no sound emerges. Her eyes roll back in her head as he uses her.</p><p>“So. fucking. good,” he grunts, with a toe-curling thrust for each word, and if her lungs worked she would scream her agreement. “You like it, Rey? My Rey. My fucking darling. Oh, <em> fuck.” </em></p><p>She manages only a strangled moan in response, and it must be enough for him. Because he goes on.</p><p>“Could fuck you forever.” The slap of his skin against hers ripples her ass. “My whole goddamn life.” Her tits are crushed against the wood. “Never stop. Never leave. Rey.”</p><p>He moves the hand on the dresser closer to her, so his thumb rests against the side of her breast. She thought her body was already feeling all the sensations it could possibly feel. She was wrong.</p><p>Her legs tremble where they hang. Her breath is just one long moan, now, interrupted only by her lungs filling up to continue it. Her feet spasm and twitch against air, and she <em> yells </em> her third peak. She’s lost control of her body. Sweat bedaubs her cheeks, or maybe tears. Saliva drips from her mouth. She’s only dimly aware of a grunt behind her, and a last set of heaving thrusts, and it’s over. He sets her feet down for just a second. He pulls out of her and scoops her up in his arms and she lies there limply as he carries her to the bed. He props her up against the pillows like a ragdoll, and she looks up at him in exhausted awe. He plucks a tissue from the bedside table and tenderly wipes her cheeks with it, and he kisses her red face and he says how good she is: <em> good </em> and <em> perfect </em> and <em> mine. </em> She listens from the other end of a tunnel.</p><p>Her senses return slowly. She weakly lifts her hand to rest it on his knee. She closes her eyes and chuckles. She endeavors to wrap her mind around what just happened.</p><p>He brings her hand to his mouth and kisses it, supporting her elbow with his other hand. She smiles, her eyes still closed.</p><p>There’s a knock at the door.</p><p>Rey opens her eyes to the sight of Ben stuffing his cock back in his boxers. “They can leave it outside?” she asks tiredly.</p><p>“I’m just going to give them a tip.”</p><p>She exerts herself enough to sit up. So she can take his face in her hands and kiss him deeply.</p><p>He smiles a sunrise.</p><p>She’ll probably muster enough energy at some point to be concerned that she’s falling in love with him.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He wants to feed her by hand, but that’s where she draws the line. He can fly eight and a half hours to see her. He can fuck her so hard that she loses control of her body. He can cuddle her and kiss her and tell her how good she is. But she can hold her own fork, thank you very much.</p><p>She puts her sweatshirt back on, once she regains the use of her limbs. He sits against the pillows next to her, close enough to touch but not touching. He didn’t get anything for himself. He ordered her steak and french fries and asks three times if she likes it, or if she would’ve preferred something different. “Because I can call back, I can get something else, whatever you want. Maybe just one of everything?”</p><p>“Ben,” she says through a mouthful of ketchup-bedaubed fries. “It’s good. It’s perfect.”</p><p>“Okay.” He takes a breath. “Okay.”</p><p>She hacks at the steak with what must be terrible manners, but manners shouldn’t matter in bed. If it bothers him, he’s leaving in a few hours anyway, so he won’t be subjected to her for too long. She checks her phone on the bedside table. Just after midnight. Four hours.</p><p>Maybe four hours is four too much. Maybe she should leave before he tips another service worker, or calls her a good girl with his voice and hands and eyes and not just his thumbs on a screen. Before he manages to redefine sex for her. Again.</p><p>She could still get probably three and a half hours of sleep, if she leaves now. She’s made do with less, before him, and she might have to do it again after. She should start getting used to it.</p><p>She finishes her food and lets the plate sit on the bed between her legs, until he takes it and puts it on the bedside table. He turns back toward her, and she doesn’t move. She just looks straight ahead, stroking one thumb with the other.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asks tentatively.</p><p>“I’m fine.”</p><p>“I just wondered—” He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t know if I did it right. Aftercare. I read that I was supposed to hold you and make sure you felt cared for and talk about what happened, if you wanted. But the food came before...” He trails off. “I didn’t want you to feel used.”</p><p>“Of course I did. That’s what I wanted,” she says, looking over at him. “That’s what I asked for.”</p><p>“Yes, <em> during </em> sex, Rey, not after.”</p><p>She looks straight ahead again.</p><p>“Have you—” He stops himself. Treads carefully. “You asked me if I’d done this before. Is it okay if I ask you the same thing?”</p><p>She sets her chin. “Yes. I have.”</p><p>“Okay.” He tentatively proceeds. “Did your partners do aftercare?”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“Did you know that they were supposed to?”</p><p>“What, one Google search later you’re suddenly some kind of expert?” she snaps.</p><p>He continues undeterred. “It’s not just for the submissive. It’s to make sure both people are okay. It can take a toll, to use someone like that. Especially someone you care about. Even if it’s just during sex and even if they want it.”</p><p>“You’re saying you want to hold me to make yourself feel better?”</p><p>“Yes. Only if it’s okay with you.”</p><p>She tries to look like she doesn’t particularly care one way or the other. “Fine.” Casual. “How do you want to do this?”</p><p>“You could sit on my lap. If you want. Or we can lie down.”</p><p>“Fine. Lap is fine.”</p><p>She gets to her knees and swings one over his legs, straddling him. She sits on his thighs but doesn’t lean forward. She’s technically on his lap. But he’s not holding her.</p><p>She doesn’t meet his eyes. She looks down at his shirt. The white is immaculate. It looks brand new. She wonders if it is, or if expensive clothes look new even if they aren’t. She doesn’t feel like his shirt. She feels like her sweatshirt. Frayed around the edges.</p><p>He raises his hand to her cheek, cups it. “Hey.”</p><p>She looks at him. That was her first mistake. (Or probably her second, or third, or fourth—who knows. Coming to his hotel. Opening the door when he rang. Drunkenly texting him in the first place. Letting herself pretend this could be something.)</p><p>She leans forward, grabs fistfuls of his shirt and buries her face in his shoulder. He can hold her, but he doesn’t get to see her cry.</p><p>She hates that she loves his arms around her. She detests that he coos and murmurs and kisses her hair and she fucking adores it. She’s furious with herself, and that brings more tears. She’s livid at the injustice of the world that makes her work her life away to stay alive. She rages against the people who look at Poe and see a predator, and at herself, because she never knew it. He had to carry that alone. He couldn’t even share it with his friend, because he knew she wouldn’t want him to.</p><p>How much more hurt does Poe have locked away? How much does she?</p><p>His shirt isn’t spotless anymore. It has her tears. Her fingers are probably stretching out the fabric where she holds onto it. It makes her feel better, the knowledge that it isn’t perfect. She doesn’t want his shirt to be perfect. She doesn’t want him to be perfect. Because the more perfect he is, the further she is from deserving him.</p><p>Her tears slow, but she doesn’t move. She stays wrapped in him as her sobs quiet. Her face is still buried in his neck when she asks, “Talk to me?”</p><p>He caresses her hair. “What do you want me to talk about?”</p><p>“How did you meet Poe?”</p><p>He rubs her back, up and down in long strokes. “We were juniors in high school. He started partway through the year. He didn’t know anyone. Usually when someone transferred it was hard for them to make friends, because all the groups were already established. But not Poe.”</p><p>She nuzzles into him and adjusts her grip on his shirt, and he evidently takes that as encouragement to go on. “He was the kind of person who attracted people like a magnet. He made you feel so good about yourself, just by being around him. He made you feel like you were fun and interesting and worthy of friendship. It didn’t matter if I was, really, because Poe decided I was and that was that. He called me nonsense names. A different one every time. Benaissance, or Benneth, or Benk of America.” He chuckles. She feels it rumble in his chest. “Once he ran out of ideas and had to resort to Bench. One time I called him Poeseph. He lit up like I’d given him the best present in the world. So I always called him that. He felt things, and he made me feel like I was allowed to have emotions. As a teenage boy that was hard to come by.</p><p>“I only learned gradually how hard he had it. It’s not like he announced it. But sometimes he’d mention something about one of his jobs. I never did figure out exactly how many he had.”</p><p>He rubs his thumb over her sweatshirt where it covers her shoulder blade. “Are you doing okay?”</p><p>She nods into his neck.</p><p>“Do you want me to keep going?”</p><p>“Mm hmm.”</p><p>“He talked about you. All the time. Even before you ran away together, when you were in that foster placement with him. You were thirteen, I think, when I met him. He thought you were the smartest person in the world. He still does. If someone could literally burst with pride, he would—to have a sister like you. The slightest thing could get him started, and he would talk anyone’s ear off about how great you were. But it wasn’t annoying. His love for you shone through so clearly that it was a pleasure to listen to him. I was jealous of you, a little. More than a little. He called me his brother but I knew I’d never have what you do. You and him.”</p><p>She moves one hand to his arm, stroking him the way he’s stroking her.</p><p>“When I transferred at the end of that year, to the fancy private prep school my mother insisted on, I thought I’d lost him as a friend. There were plenty of other people he could spend time with without going out of his way to see me. People who were much better company. But he made the effort. He made time to text me or call me. We’d meet up once in a while. Never for a meal, because I knew he couldn’t afford to eat out even though he was too proud to say so. And I knew he wouldn’t let me pay. It took me something like four years for me to work up the courage to offer him money. The fact that he took it is probably the thing that’s made me the happiest in my whole life.”</p><p>He pauses. “That is, until you.”</p><p>She doesn’t know what time it is. It’s probably close to one. Three hours left. What if she let herself be happy for three hours? Without thinking about tomorrow, or the day after, or the succession of days after that, that she’ll spend without him? What would she let herself want?</p><p>When she sits up, she’s smiling. She wipes the last of the tears from her blotchy face and rests her hands on his biceps. “You make me happy too.”</p><p>“I do?” There’s a hopeful wonder in his face that might otherwise scare her, but she doesn’t let it. Not for the next three hours.</p><p>She smiles. “Yes.”</p><p>“Why did you text me? That night?”</p><p>She bites her lip. “I took off work for my birthday. That seems like a normal thing, right? Shouldn’t be too hard? It’s tricky when you have four jobs. I needed to take off thirty-six hours.”</p><p>He nods, urging her on.</p><p>“I called in favors. I switched shifts with people. I worked all day every day the week leading up to it and the week following, to do enough that I could have a whole day and a half without working. It was the ultimate luxury. I let myself spend money that I didn’t absolutely need to. I got drunk. And I let myself do the other thing that I wanted to do. I texted you.</p><p>“If I’d waited until I was sober I could’ve been much more articulate. But if I’d waited until I was sober I never would have done it. So that’s why you were treated to the world’s worst sexting.”</p><p>“Hardly the worst,” he scoffs playfully. “I mean, it worked, didn’t it?”</p><p>She laughs.</p><p>“Well not nearly as good as it could’ve been, anyway.”</p><p>“As you’ve since proven. Good thing I have a good dry cleaner.”</p><p>“Okay, that’s another thing,” she exclaims. “How do you cum practically untouched in your pants and then fuck me the way you just did?”</p><p>He shrugs. “The first time I don’t last very long. But then the second I can go a long time.”</p><p>She smiles mischievously. “What about the third?”</p><p>He slides his hands to her bare thighs. “Would you like to find out?”</p><p>“How much of a tease would you think I was if I said not yet?”</p><p>“The exact perfect amount of tease.”</p><p>She smiles. “I just want to sit here a little longer. With you. And then you can fuck me after, okay?”</p><p>He lets out a shaky breath. “Rey. I’ve dreamed of this. For years. And now you’re sitting on my lap saying I make you happy. I can fuck you for the rest of the night or not at all, and either way I’ll be the happiest man in the world.”</p><p>She grins. “So you <em> are </em> saying you can go a long time after you’ve cum twice? Because that’s useful informa—”</p><p>He grabs her face and kisses her. She clings to him. It’s perfection in a kiss. It’s that unattainable romance novel, fairytale, oh-<em> this </em>-is-what-love-feels-like kind of magic, and she doesn’t shy away.</p><p>Her phone buzzes a text notification on the nightstand. Ben groans.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
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    <p>1:46. Just over two hours left. She wants to cling to him and push him away at the same time. Sleep tugs at her eyes, but she resists. She’s lying half on top of him, with a leg slung over his and one arm over his chest and her hand tucked securely under his back.</p><p>Her sweatshirt rode up partway over her rear at some point, and they’re only half under the tangle of sheets and blankets, but she’s not cold. The heat is turned up, because she’s not paying for it. And besides, she has him to keep her warm.</p><p>“Talk to me,” she slurs tiredly.</p><p>“Do you want to sleep?” he murmurs.</p><p>She grunts in protest.</p><p>“I think you do, sweetheart.”</p><p>“Nuh uh,” she whines sleepily, “want you to fuck me.” She squirms feebly against him, trying to extract her hand and grope for his cock.</p><p>He grabs her wrist before she can make it there. “I’ll fuck you in the morning.”</p><p>“Promise?” She lets her eyes close.</p><p>“Promise.”</p><p>She remembers something. “Can’t. ‘M working.”</p><p>“I’ll wake you up before four, okay? Sweetheart?”</p><p>She hums sleepily. She doesn’t know what he’s saying, but he called her sweetheart, so everything is alright.</p><p>He brings her hand to his mouth and kisses her palm softly before he settles it on his chest. He covers her hand with his.</p><p><em> Love you. </em> The words slowly seep and tug her under. She doesn’t know if they came from his mouth or her soul.</p><p>Her body doesn’t wait for him to wake her up. It nudges her on its own. She opens her eyes and the lamp is still on, because he didn’t get out from under her to turn it off.</p><p>“What time is it?” she asks before realizing that just because <em> she’s </em> awake, it doesn’t automatically mean he is.</p><p>But he finds her phone in the sheets and tells her, “3:06. You can sleep some more. You have time.”</p><p>She <em> doesn’t </em> have time, that’s the problem, and the knowledge wakes her up. One hour. One measly hour out of seven, and what did she do with them? Seven whole hours. She shouldn’t have slept. She should have let him feed her like he wanted. She shouldn’t have wasted their time on tears.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says, though she knows he won’t understand. She scoots up so her face is over his, and she kisses him. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asks softly, caressing her temple with his thumb.</p><p>She just shakes her head and kisses him deeply. She writhes on top of him, frantic to feel his body against hers. She plants her knees by his sides and grinds her crotch against his abdomen as best she can.</p><p>He’s panting heavily when she breaks the kiss, and so is she. She humps against the smooth plane of his stomach, and it’s not what she needs, but maybe he’ll realize that and give it to her.</p><p>“Please, Ben,” she moans, and dips down to kiss him again. “Need you. <em> Now. </em> Please.” She’s nearly crying. His bare skin isn’t against hers, and he’s not inside her, and their precious seconds are ticking away and she can’t possibly bear it.</p><p>He doesn’t tease her this time, doesn’t make her wait. He quickly flips them both over so she lands on her back with a bounce, and she doesn’t have time to do anything more than watch as he tears his shirt off and shimmies ungracefully out of his boxers. She remembers that she has clothes on, too, and impatiently yanks the sweatshirt over her head. She doesn’t spare the second it would take to toss it aside, she just leaves it where it falls half under her head. It doesn’t matter. The clothes or the sheets or anything but the fact of his naked body and hers. He’s on top of her before she can gasp.</p><p>He smooths his palms up her arms, pushing them over her head, and holds them there with his hands bearing down on her elbows. Without his arms to support his weight, she bears the brunt of it, and she cries out in strangled need for him, for <em> more, </em> for time. She spreads her legs beneath him and undulates mindlessly, every cell in her body seeking his cock.</p><p>“Condom,” he moans against her, but she locks her legs around him and keeps him there.</p><p>“Please, Ben,” she chokes, and why is there wetness next to her eyes? “Need you <em> now.” </em> This isn’t her. She’s responsible and intelligent and would <em> never </em> take a risk like she’s asking of him now. But never doesn’t mean anything anymore, because there’s less than an hour left in the world.</p><p>She can see it in his eyes as he looks at her, as he considers what could come of their rashness. And then he groans and kisses her with the same devoted fervor that he used on her cunt. She cries out wildly when his cock thrusts home. He releases her arms and waits, propping himself up on elbows by her head and kissing her face.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asks, and she knows it’s because of the tears.</p><p>“Please,” she gasps. “I might cry, okay? But don’t stop.”</p><p>He kisses her forehead and her cheeks and he starts to move, because he understands. Part of it, at least. He knows he isn’t hurting her body. He knows it would hurt more <em> not </em> to have him inside, in that place that’s gone unfilled by him for almost forever. She doesn’t sob. The tears stream silently into her hairline by her eyes. She wraps her arms around his back, to feel as much of him as she can. He lays his torso down on hers and thrusts with rolls of his hips, and they’re not as deep as they could be but they give her his flesh against hers, and she needs it. She seeks his calves with the soles of her feet. She grabs his arms, trying to memorize them. Trying to feel her fill, enough to sustain her for the rest of her life.</p><p>She feels her orgasm climbing from a tingle in her toes and she fights it, trying to stave it off, trying to make it last. So he doesn’t stop. But her head jerks back and her body spasms beneath him. She clamps her vocal chords and doesn’t make a noise, like if she doesn’t he won’t notice that she’s cum. So he’ll keep going forever.</p><p>But after he works her through her aftershocks with slow strokes, he stills.</p><p>“Don’t stop,” she chokes out.</p><p>“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” It’s true, in part. There are certainly plenty of things that she could cry over, but she’s not crying because of any of them in particular. She’s just <em> sad. </em> And hurting. And happy, too, so much that she can’t bear it. And if someone had told her this was what love would be like, she never would’ve texted Ben in the first place.</p><p>“What can I do?” he asks.</p><p>She brings her hands up over her head and crosses her wrists so he can hold them down. “Fuck me more.”</p><p>He shakes his head and touches her cheek. “Rey. You keep saying that. Like it’s not something we’re choosing to do together. You’re not the direct object of sex.”</p><p>“I know,” she answers automatically.</p><p>“Do you?” he says gently. “Because it doesn’t feel like you’re letting me in.”</p><p>She scoffs. “You’re literally balls deep inside me right now.”</p><p>“That’s not what I mean, and I think you know it.”</p><p>“I can’t, okay? I’m doing what I can. The best I can.” She brings a hand down to cover her eyes. She takes a shuddering breath.</p><p>He carefully, slowly pulls out of her, and she whimpers but doesn’t otherwise protest. He rolls onto his side and takes her with him, so she’s lying next to him. Not above him or pinned by his weight, but beside him. Eye to eye.</p><p>He takes a deep breath. “Rey, it seems like maybe you haven’t had a very healthy relationship with sex.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>He’s taken aback at that. “What?”</p><p>“Why does that matter?”</p><p>“Why does it <em> matter?” </em> He’s incredulous.</p><p>“I get off every time. Well, usually.”</p><p>“That’s not all that matters.”</p><p>She doesn’t know what he’s getting at, so she’s stubbornly silent.</p><p>“I know you like to feel in the moment like someone else is using your body for their pleasure. But you need to be an equal participant, with equal power.”</p><p>“You’re saying it’s messed up, the way I like sex?”</p><p><em> “No, </em> Rey. It’s good. It’s wonderful. If you and your partner are on the same page. And if you know that your needs are just as important as his. And that you’re valued as a person.”</p><p>She looks at his ear, not his eyes. He goes on. “You’ve never had aftercare before. So I don’t think your partners have been doing it right. I want you to feel happy and secure during sex. And know that your partner will make sure you’re okay afterward. And that you’re not just there to be fucked.”</p><p>He takes a breath. “I don’t just want to fuck you, Rey. I want to have sex with you. You and me.”</p><p>“It’s the same thing.”</p><p>“That depends, I guess.”</p><p>“On what?”</p><p>“On whether you know that I respect you. And I can pretend that I only care about using your body to get myself off if that’s what you want, but that’s not how I feel about having sex with you.”</p><p>She avoids his eyes still. “Why do you care?”</p><p>“I care about you.”</p><p>“Saying that over and over doesn’t make it more true.”</p><p>“You don’t believe me?”</p><p>“You care about me enough to send me money, and make sure I get sleep and orgasms.” She sits up and turns away from him, so he can only see her bare back. “If you really cared about my feelings, you wouldn’t have gotten on a plane.”</p><p>“Rey—”</p><p>“No. I’m graduating in three months. I have a job, and I’m moving, and I’m getting my own apartment with a bed bigger than a twin, and I’m going to have a life. Poe and I. And you’re going to be... <em> so </em> far away. So why did you come, if you’re just going to leave?”</p><p>She bites down on her knuckle and waits. She hopes he’ll sit up and brush her hair aside and kiss her neck so she can melt backwards into him. He doesn’t.</p><p>“Call off work.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p><em> “Please, </em> Rey, we need time to talk.”</p><p>“What’s the point?”</p><p>“I know you don’t mean that, and you’re just saying it because you’re hurting right now.”</p><p>“You <em> don’t </em> know, Ben!” she says, whirling angrily to face him, still naked. “You can’t just come here and upend my life and start telling me I’m bad at sex and talking about things!”</p><p>“I didn’t—”</p><p>“I’m <em> not </em> going to call off work. And after my shift I have a meeting in the library for a group project. And then I have work at the bookstore. And after that I have to write a paper that I should’ve started yesterday evening, but I didn’t, because of you. So by the time I finish that I’ll have worked probably from 4:30 to midnight on two hours of sleep, and by the time I go to bed you’ll be back in your fancy London penthouse or whatever the fuck. You shouldn’t have come, Ben.”</p><p>She turns back away from him so she doesn’t have to look at his beautiful, hurt, <em> stupid </em> face anymore. He doesn’t say anything. She reaches for her phone. It’s a few minutes to four. The seven hours are up, and this is how she used them. She’s too tired to cry.</p><p>She stands up, picks up her bag, and goes to shower. He doesn’t come after her.</p><p>Even after she’s showered and dressed in clean, only minimally wrinkled clothes, she still looks like shit. She looks at her face in the bathroom mirror and wonders if she always looks this tired and she’s only now noticing with a thoroughly-lit mirror.</p><p>Ben is dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed when she emerges.</p><p>“What time is your flight?”</p><p>“I didn’t get one.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I didn’t know how long you’d let me stay, so I figured I’d just buy a return ticket for whenever I left.”</p><p>“Doesn’t it cost like twice as much to buy two one-way tickets as it does to get a round-trip, even if you have to reschedule?”</p><p>He shrugs. “Probably.”</p><p>She scoffs angrily.</p><p>“You know if you’d let me give you more money I’d do it in a heartbeat.”</p><p>She glares at him. “Oh, that would make <em> everything </em>better.”</p><p>She needs to go over to the bed, because her sweatshirt is still there. He watches in silence as she approaches. He’s sitting on one of the sleeves.</p><p>“Excuse me,” she says stiffly.</p><p>He shifts over. She picks it up. She sets her bag on the bed to stuff it in. He watches her hands.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “About moving.”</p><p>She stills.</p><p>He watches her. “Here. To North Carolina.”</p><p>“What? There are plenty of better places.”</p><p><em> “You </em> chose to move here.”</p><p>“For school. And you shouldn’t trust my judgment.”</p><p>“But I do,” he says quietly.</p><p>She stuffs her sweatshirt in the bag and zips it up.</p><p>“Would that—change anything?”</p><p>She hoists the bag over her shoulder. “Why would it?”</p><p>“Oh. Okay.”</p><p>“Seriously, why would you move here? I can’t imagine your company has an office here or anything.”</p><p>He looks up at her in pained disbelief. “I guess I...read this wrong. You told me, weeks ago, but I didn’t want to hear it.”</p><p>She doesn’t know what he’s talking about. She could ask, but she’s tired. So tired. And does it really matter, anyway? “Have a good flight.”</p><p>“Sure. Say hi to Poe for me.”</p><p>They both wince at the thought of Poe—the person whose happiness maybe they both care about more than their own—imagining his best friend and his sister blissfully in love, and a 9.5 on the happiness scale. And instead, this. The thermostat is still on high, but the temperature in the room has dropped twenty degrees. It chills.</p><p>She doesn’t hug him, or kiss his cheek, or shake his hand, because there isn’t a category of goodbyes for what they are. For what they never were.</p><p>There’s nothing more to say. So she puts on her coat and boots and she leaves. He never gets up from the bed. At least, she thinks he doesn’t. She doesn’t look back.</p><p>The buses don’t start running until six on Saturdays, so she has to get a Lyft. It costs two dollars more than when she gets it from home because the hotel is farther from the bakery. She irrationally begrudges him those two dollars.</p><p>It’s not just her imagination, how bad she looks. Because when she gets to work her boss promptly decrees that she must be  coming down with something and sends her home. Rey doesn’t argue. She takes a day-old baguette for breakfast.</p><p>The sun hasn’t risen when she gets back to the house. She fumbles with cold fingers that can’t make the key work properly the first couple tries. She toes her boots off inside the door but doesn’t remove her coat. She microwaves water for instant coffee. She rips the hard baguette up and dips it in the coffee so it doesn’t cut her gums. She eats it standing over the sink.</p><p>She thinks about crying but decides it’s too much work.</p><p>It’s 5:14 by the microwave clock. She’s supposed to meet with her classmates at eleven. She should clean, or study, or start her paper so she doesn’t have to do it that evening. She decides to sleep instead.</p><p>She feels for her phone in her pocket and thinks that he took even that from her: their texts. Something to look forward to, something more immediate than the post-graduation someday she’s been clinging to for years. She pulls her phone out and goes to turn off the ringer and set an alarm.</p><p>There’s a text waiting.</p><p> </p><p>
  
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Moodboard by <a href="https://twitter.com/reylotrash711">@reylotrash711</a> and calligraphy by <a href="https://twitter.com/spicytofuuuu">@spicytofuuuu</a> on Twitter! 💛</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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<p>She opens the door.</p>
<p>He’s standing there in the pre-dawn darkness. It’s just like the night before and entirely different.</p>
<p>Because now there’s love.</p>
<p>She doesn’t walk into his arms this time, because she can’t make her legs work. She just stands there, holding the door open.</p>
<p>He takes a deep breath. “When I texted you I assumed you wouldn’t respond until after your shift, and when I told the driver to turn around I didn’t have any address to give him except your house, because I don’t know which bakery you work at, so I was thinking about looking them up and trying each one until I found you, but then you texted me back. So I thought you might be home. And that’s why I came here. To tell you I can’t get on a plane to London, not today. Not without you knowing that I’ll always come back to you, if you’ll have me.”</p>
<p>She can’t move.</p>
<p>He continues. “I know I’m not perfect and I know we’re in different places in our lives, and you have your whole life ahead of you and you could do anything. You could be with anyone. I <em> know </em> that, but it doesn’t stop me from loving you. I’ve loved you for years, Rey, and I know it’s unfair of me to spring this on you, and you can tell me to go. I can go back to London if that’s what you want. But I couldn’t leave without telling you. So you could make a choice knowing all the information.”</p>
<p>His words wash over her, some making their way into her brain and others filtering through. There’s one piece, though, that’s burned into her eyes, branded on her eardrums. The only piece that matters. She stands there in the coat that she never took off and says:</p>
<p>“You love me?”</p>
<p>“Well, yeah.”</p>
<p>She claps her hand across her mouth to stifle a hysterical sob. Her whole body trembles.</p>
<p>He starts toward her, concerned, but she halts him with an outstretched hand. He freezes with one foot still on the stoop and one just inside.</p>
<p>There are things she needs to say before she ends up in his arms.</p>
<p>“You left.” Her voice is strangled by tears.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“You were going to <em> leave </em>me.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry.”</p>
<p><em> “Don’t </em> leave me.”</p>
<p>“Rey,” he says gently, stepping up slowly onto the inside doormat. “Why not?”</p>
<p>She looks up at him through tears. Her words come out half as a sob. “Because I love you too, okay?”</p>
<p><em> Then </em> she’s in his arms.</p>
<p>She doesn’t know exactly why she’s crying so hysterically. It might have something to do with the fact that she’s barely slept. Or that up until three minutes ago, she thought he was at the airport. Or that he’s kissing her forehead, her temples, her hair, everywhere his lips can reach. He holds her and she cries and he waits for her. He holds her and he doesn’t leave. He holds her and he loves her.</p>
<p>When he undresses her in her bedroom, it’s nothing like she would’ve imagined his first time undressing her in her bedroom to be. There’s no heat. His hands are tender. He doesn’t touch her skin any more than he has to as he carefully helps her out of her coat and sweater and jeans and lays her down on her messy unmade bed.</p>
<p>He shrugs his own coat off and sits down on the floor, and she’s confused until she realizes he doesn’t mean to get in bed with her. To let her sleep undisturbed.</p>
<p><em> That </em> won’t do. And he must be exhausted too.</p>
<p>“Sleep with me,” she murmurs, reaching out for him.</p>
<p>“There isn’t room,” he says, kissing her hand.</p>
<p>“If you don’t come here, I’m coming down on the floor,” she threatens, and starts gathering up the blankets so he knows it’s true.</p>
<p>“Okay, fine,” he concedes, smiling. “What time should I set an alarm for?”</p>
<p>“Mmm. Ten.”</p>
<p>He does, then he takes off his button-down shirt and shoes and trousers and slides in next to her in just an undershirt and boxers. Like last night. As it should be. He maneuvers them in the twin bed so he’s spooning her, one arm curled over her middle. She’s sure his feet must be hanging off the end of the bed.</p>
<p>“You didn’t sleep last night,” she mumbles.</p>
<p>“I knew I wouldn’t. That’s why I tried to sleep on the plane on the way here.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>He nuzzles her hair. “Because I didn’t want to miss a second of you.”</p>
<p>“Seven hours,” she murmurs.</p>
<p>“Hmm?”</p>
<p>“Only had seven hours.”</p>
<p>“I know.”</p>
<p>“Need more time,” she slurs tiredly. “Seven <em> years.” </em></p>
<p>She’s half asleep already, so she doesn’t know later if he really said it or if she dreamed it.</p>
<p>
  <em> “How about seventy?” </em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They sleep all the way to the alarm he set. If she happens to be a few minutes late to her eleven o’clock meeting, it’s just because she woke up with him hard against her hip with his hand on her breast and she needed to squirm and giggle and kiss him and watch the sunlit awe on his face as she rode his cock.</p>
<p>Then she needed to let him order breakfast from the bagel place around the corner because it had the shortest delivery time, and she needed to sit on the floor with him and cackle with glee and dab cream cheese on his nose and lick it off. Then she needed to try to get dressed while he was kissing her, which was no mean feat, and she had to tell him she’d be back later and she had to leave, which was the hardest part of all.</p>
<p>They snatch what time she can spare. She writes her essay that night sitting between his legs, leaning back against his chest. He doesn’t distract her, just touches her every once in a while. Her arm, or her hair. Like he’s trying to convince himself that she’s real. She finishes in record time.</p>
<p>They have sex three times that night. She cries again, but it’s okay. He cries too. She says it, over and over and over: <em> love. </em> It tastes right in her mouth. He says it more. He moves inside her body and looks at her like heaven is real.</p>
<p>When he leaves for the airport three days later, she doesn’t cry. She goes on tiptoes to kiss him and he grins and says, “My sweetheart. My love,” and he gets in the car and he turns to look out the back window to watch her as long as he can. She doesn’t wave, she just stands there in the dawn and smiles.</p>
<p>He leaves her but she doesn’t cry, because this time the leaving is different. Because now there’s an email sitting in her sent messages. One that she wrote one evening sitting between his knees as he braided her hair, with an empty pizza box next to them. An email to a certain landlord in Philadelphia asking that another name be added to Rey Johnson’s lease, the one that starts on the 3rd of May:</p>
<p>Benjamin Solo.</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Well this was supposed to be a short, sexy, non-angsty tweet fic, and then THIS happened. 😊 Huge thanks to everyone who has read here or on Twitter; your love for these characters means everything to me. I’m doing a lot of my writing on <a href="https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2">Twitter</a> nowadays — feel free to come visit me! 💛</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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